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MARTIN WOLF: Why the fight to halt the theft of ideas is futile

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20 November 2019 - 10:05 Martin Wolf

What do paper, printing with movable type, gunpowder and the compass have in common? The answer is that they were Chinese inventions. Without them, the European advances from the 15th century onwards would have been far harder, if not impossible.

This story illustrates why we should want productive knowledge to flow across the world. Knowledge also “wants to be free” because unlike a commodity, my use of your idea does not prevent you, or anybody else, from using it. In the jargon, knowledge is “non-rival” in consumption, which gives it the character of a “public good”.

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